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IC 1396 - The Elephant Trunk Nebula, Patrick Manley
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Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
IC 1396 - The Elephant Trunk Nebula, Patrick Manley
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Description

Here is IC1396, The Elephant Trunk Nebula. This image was taken using a ZWO ASI2600MC Pro one shot color camera, using a RASA 8” telescope at f/2, and was riding on a Losmandy GM811 mount. The image includes 120 minutes of integration time shot at 60s exposures unguided. Using a few tricks, this image could be even (and I’m sure some stuff I don’t even know of yet). You can see the shape of the elephant trunk and ears by some dark nebula that are present. Peer more closely at the dark nebula, some look like animals, some look like people running. Very interesting object to observe..

Real Technical Information: Astrophotography is forever a learning experience. For example in this image, I REALLY need to add some H-Alpha data to really pull out the trunk. While it is somewhat visible here, H-Alpha really makes a huge difference, but the dark nebulas in the elephant’s head are VERY visible without narrowband data. Also I have learned that with the front mounted camera on the RASA, you can get some pretty wild diffraction spikes on bright stars. There are a variety of ways around this by using cable management techniques.

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IC 1396 - The Elephant Trunk Nebula, Patrick Manley